


Promises of Light

by Aithilin



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Fluff, M/M, Promises, stars and light
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-16
Updated: 2017-03-16
Packaged: 2018-10-05 23:41:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10320239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aithilin/pseuds/Aithilin
Summary: Sometimes, Nyx gets a healthy dose of nostalgia and a sense of home.





	

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt over at my [Tumblr](http://aithilin.tumblr.com/): “Things you said after we fell in love.”

The thing about the darkness— about the night and the shadows that crept through the whispering trees and along the cold winds— was that it was a promise. It was the promise of the dreams and the lights at the end of it. That the stars above would shine and sparkle like distant creatures trying to claw their way through reality. Beneath the shimmers of the barrier projected over the city, the stars were even more of a promise. 

Even in the city, the darkness was a call, a promise resting just out of reach. 

“I’ll take you there, one day,” Nyx said as he watched the shimmer of the barrier and the glitter of the stars beyond. As he watched the slow path the moon took across the sky, tracked against the already shining sky. 

He had an arm around Noct, a blanket spread out against the cold roof of the Citadel. It was a poor substitute for the grass beyond the wall— for the open and the wilds and real dark that would close around them, blanket them. 

“You always say that.”

“Because I mean it, your highness.” Nyx would smile, see the edges of familiar constellations he used to name off to his sister. Stars he used to use in place of maps when he and Libertus and Crowe would wander too far from town in their efforts to explore the mountains. “A whole different sky to see there.”

A sky free of the city lights. Air free of the noise of cars and people gathered all in one place. Breezes and water free of the shimmer of Lucian magic. No need for the highest rooftops in the city, or the blankets stretched out in quiet corners. 

“Hearth and home, right?”

“Right.”

“That’s not here.”

It took a moment for Nyx to register what Noct had said. Took a moment for the soft tone, the edge of fear, to sink through the memory of red, dusty mountains and expanses of prairie petering out to desert. “Noct? What’s up.”

“Your home, it’s not here.” Noct had already been stretched against him, already pressed close in their privacy. His jacket draped over them with Nyx’s coat since the one blanket they thought to take was stretched out beneath them. “It’s out there.”

“You’re here.” Nyx smiled, squeezing Noct a bit, pressing him closer— shifting until he could press his lips to dark hair. “And that’s as good.”

Nyx had been in love before. He loved easily. Libertus used to rib him for it. Men, women, Nyx spent most of his youth pining after one or another back at home. Back in the dry dusts and the warm sun. He remembered the strangeness of the Lucians afterwards— the pallor, the coldness, the shimmering, shining desire they plastered everywhere to mask the cruelty still simmering beneath the surface. He remembered the kindness of a king and a flood of power, of being labelled an outsider instead of part of a community, of watching his heritage and life and home slip further and further out of reach. 

Nyx remembered hating, resenting. Fearing. He remembered pouring everything into his service, into the promise of Hearth and Home— the promise of returning home. To where he could belong. 

He remembered meeting Noctis. The quiet, withdrawn, wary slip of Lucian power. He remembered seeing the kindness of the king reflected in crystal-blue eyes before a head was ducked down to mask the interest. He remembered seeing Noctis, and being reminded of the rains back home. Of the promise they brought as the water fell like a wall down the red mountains to strip away the dust. 

“But you want to leave.”

Nyx remembered the first time he got close to Noct— the way he had gently shifted dark hair aside with a grin. A grin that he had to will in place as he fell into those wide, blue eyes. The eyes that reminded him of rain back home. 

“Not without you.”

He remembered realising that Noct was not a cold, shimmering Lucian citizen. He remembered the wicked smiles and impulsive ideas, the chases through city streets and into the dark corners a prince was not expected to venture. He remembered the first time he made Noct laugh, the first time he called him something other than a title. 

Nyx had been in love before. He knew what it was to fall, to rush through on the winds of pure, unadulterated elation. He knew what it was to spend hours in each other’s arms, to feel another person pulse against him, with him. 

There were stars above them— clawing, clinging, raw light pushing through pinholes in the dark— and Nyx could only think of the way Noct would look spread out in the wilds of Galahd. Beneath a magic more real, raw, and far less perfected or trained than the Lucian fire that rushed beneath his skin, singing under Nyx’s touch. 

“Never without you, Noct.” 

Nyx could live forever on that small smile. Could drink from it. Thrive on it. And he returned it with his own. “I promise.”

“Tell me about Galahd, hero.”


End file.
